“THIS wound still pains you,” I said as I rubbed Carradoc’s back with a wet cloth and soap. He sat in the bathing tub before the hearth in our bedchamber. Hannah and the other servants had filled it nearly to the rim with hot water. The water seemed to ease the tension along the angry scar that ran from his right shoulder blade to left hip.
That water cooled now, yet my husband lingered.
He’d been struck from behind by a Saxon ax. That much was clear. Battle often dissolved into the chaos of individual duels. Directions became confused. Enemy warriors could approach from any side.
Still, the placement of the wound suggested that Carradoc might have been fleeing the field. A great dishonor he’d never admit even if true.
“Aye, it pains me,” he replied succinctly. Usually warriors gloried in retelling how they received their battle scars. I’d heard detailed reports from every member of the warband who had returned. When I’d first married him, Carradoc himself had related tales about many of the other scars on his body. But not this one.
“How did you survive? The chirurgeons must have worked long and hard to keep your life spirit from fleeing your body.”
“The Merlin worked some kind of magic on me. He owed me that after I took you off his hands.” Carradoc stood at last. He reached for a towel and covered himself modestly. He’d never bothered with clothing within the privacy of our chamber. He was proud of his body and his prowess in bed.
The knot in my belly twisted a little. I had to ignore his insults and seduce him tonight. Any later and he’d know the new baby was not his.
Reluctantly, I took another thick cloth from the bed and began rubbing him dry, taking time to caress and soothe his body.
“Leave off, woman!” He stalked to the opposite side of the room. “I must dress for the feast. My warband celebrates in the Long Hall already. I have to join them.”
The sounds of drinking and merry storytelling had been going on for nearly an hour. Almost from the moment Carradoc had returned.
“They will entertain themselves for a good while yet. Surely they will understand why we linger.” Swallowing my distaste, I kissed his shoulder and placed my hand on his hip, well away from the wound.
“I said leave off!” He pushed me away so hard I stumbled against the large tub.
“What ails you, Carradoc? You’ve always been ready to lay with me, at any time of day or night, in private or not. I haven’t seen you in over a year. Why delay?”
“I’m tired. The journey from Campboglanna is long and arduous. I left Ardh Rhi Arthur’s quarters yesterday at dawn.” He mentioned the Roman fortress on Hadrian’s Wall northeast of Caerduel where Arthur maintained his headquarters during the campaign season. Half a day’s ride at most. “I am not yet sufficiently recovered to join the army this season. I need rest. I need food. You will only drain me of vitality.” He dragged on his leggings.
I remembered Curyll’s hasty retreat from my arms. Beauty had never been mine. Yet Carradoc and Curyll had both made me feel desirable, womanly, and then rejected me. What did I do to them?
Not me. I reminded myself. Them. Something ails them both.
Perhaps Carradoc knew that Curyll had lain with me at Beltane.
Infidelity didn’t bother Carradoc for himself. He set different rules for me, his wife.
But if Carradoc knew what I had done, he would have directed his anger toward me in the courtyard, rather than toward Llandoc. I wouldn’t be alive now to question his motives.
“I must join my warband in the feast. I presume you are capable of honoring my return with a proper meal.” Carradoc thrust me aside and stalked through the door into the Long Hall.
o0o
“You haven’t asked after your other daughter, Nimuë,” Berminia said flatly after she had formally greeted her father in the Long Hall.
Sitting beside Carradoc, I saw the muscle along his jaw jump. He turned to look at me before replying. I stared straight ahead.
“Where is my eldest daughter?” he asked in a near monotone.
I swallowed my unease at her threat to steal my father as I had stolen hers. Da would teach her balance and limitation. If she had fled to Morgaine, her lessons in magic would have been filled with demon lust and greed for more and more power.
I couldn’t tell what Carradoc was thinking or feeling without looking at the layers of magical energy that surrounded him. I preferred not to look at him at all, but I had to give the illusion of a loving wife, ready and eager for the intimacies of the marriage bed.
“Your wife banished my sister along with the ravens that protected your castle, Father.” Berminia pointed an accusing finger at me.
Several of the warband and retainers sighed in disgust and boredom. They’d heard every argument Berminia had come up with against me through the long winter.
Carradoc looked sharply at me.
I kept my expressions bland. No one jumped to add other damning evidence to Berminia’s statement.
“Explain, Wren.” Carradoc’s voice sent cold chills of fear up my spine.
He’d never hidden the fact that Nimuë was his favorite, even before I’d discovered his incestuous relationship with her.
“I cleansed the fortress of a pestilence, an excess of ravens. Hundreds of them, not just the original three. Nimuë left with them. I didn’t see her go or speak to her, so I don’t know why she chose that path. One raven of the original three remains. He belongs here more than we do.”
Carradoc nodded. He didn’t give vent to anger. But he had to work at it. His jaw clenched until his cheeks turned white above his beard.
“Your wife also opened the gates of your fortress and welcomed Christians. She gave them food and shelter that we couldn’t spare. She broke her covenant with the Goddess and deliberately defied you, Da.”
“Is this true, Wren?” The edge in Carradoc’s tone told me his control of his temper was fraying. I had to walk carefully.
“I did what I had to do. You left no warriors to defend us. We thought you dead, never to return. In order to hold this land for your son, I bound the people to me through trust and mutual concern. In return for hospitality, healing, and shelter, those who fled the aftermath of war have given us food, work, and loyalty. Some have stayed to work my... the land.” I’d never call it his land again. “Others chose to freehold nearby. All of them, Christian and followers of the old way, owe us. I did what I had to do.”
I didn’t dare mention that some of the freeholders had Saxon forefathers. They had fled the violence of chaos along with native Britons, and I welcomed their hard work and loyalty.
“You had no right to open the gates to strangers when I had forbidden it.”
“You had no right to let me believe you dead while you played war with your comrades.”
“I was too grievously wounded to return home.” He stood, thrusting back his chair. His fists balled, ready to slam into something. Into me.
“You could have sent a message. My father could have sent a message that you lived. And thrived. Your muscles have not wasted as they would from months bound to a sickbed. You have been well enough to ride and practice with sword and spear for months.” I stood, too, facing him.
He raised his fist.
The entire hall stood silent, waiting. No one knew who to side with.
“There will be no more Christians polluting my lands. Berminia, you have too much time to sit and brood. Find yourself a husband tonight or I’ll do it for you in the morning.” Carradoc grabbed a pitcher full of ale from the closest serving maid and stalked back into our chamber with it. “Nimuë would never have defied me like this.” He slammed the door closed. We all heard the bolt slide into place.